For three days and nights the Java master did not emerge from his cubicle. On the fourth day the monks of the temple sent a novice to inquire after him.

The novice found the master at his whiteboard, contemplating a single dataflow diagram. The novice recognized it as a minor component of the vast system that the monks were contracted to maintain. Politely, the novice asked what the master was working on.

The master replied: “There is a defect, and I am considering the best way to repair it.”

The novice said, “You preach often about the importance of setting priorities. How, then, can you obsess about something so tiny and unimportant?”

Without saying a word, the master raised his staff and brought it down hard upon the bare left foot of the novice, breaking his smallest toe. The novice screamed in pain and staggered from the cubicle. In that moment, the novice was enlightened.